Wednesday, July 13, 2011

A very, very successful opening for The Guard from Element Pictures over the weekend. It launched at 55 cinemas in the Republic and 16 cinemas in Northern Ireland. The total, with Thursday previews, came to €528,817.

This bodes very well for its longer term prospects in Ireland - an estimate up to €2.5m seems reasonable, particularly if it plays well with the older demographic throughout the country.

If there is a slight note of caution it must be that only 5% of the total was earned in Northern Ireland, which is well below the average for most successful releases. It might also serve to dampen expectations of major success in the UK when the film is released there in a month's time.

That said, time, word of mouth and counter-programming might all work in its favour.

To the best of my knowledge Magma European Scripting House Ltd (MESH) is still in existence but I do not know if it is trading as it has several substantial creditors who were invited to a creditors meeting back in March. That meeting did not proceed and there has been a hiatus since then. To the best of my knowledge, again, Magma Films is a trading name of MESH and not a limited company in its own right.

Magma Productions is a limited company and, as far as I know, is trading and has received loan offers from the Film Board and the MEDIA Programme over the last eight months. IFB loans originally described as 'Magma Films' loans were changed to 'Magma Productions' loans a few months back.

There are numerous other companies associated with Magma, both in Galway and in Germany (eg Molten Rock Gmbh) and I cannot say definitively what the current circumstances are with each of them. Some of these would be Section 481 production vehicle companies like Finder Films 2 Ltd. which I think is another vehicle for the 'Jack Taylor' series of Ken Bruen adaptations.